BREAKING THE BARRIER

Exhibit at Women’s Museum of California documents long history of female performers in the male-dominated world of mariachi

For Perez, mariachi music has been a way of life for as long as she can remember, as well as a vital link between the past and present for generations of performers and listeners. In examining the music and its indelible role in everyday life, one can also learn much about the dynamics of gender in the music and in Mexican and Mexican-American society at large.

“The earliest reference we can find to mariachi is in the 1852 writings of a priest (in Mexico), who was complaining about it,” she said. “Social roles were very much defined at that time for men and women, so it was very much a male-dominated music genre.

“The earliest documentation of a woman mariachi musician was Rosa Quirino, in 1903. She was 12 when she started playing violin and singing in an otherwise all-male group in La Escondida, Nayarit, Mexico.”

The name of that group is unknown. Quirino went on to form her own Mariachi group. Its name is also unknown.

“That’s the challenge, that there is so little documentation,” Perez said. “Fortunately, there is a scholar in Mexico who came across her story and interviewed people who knew her, as well as her family. We have only one photo of her, and we have a replication of that photo in our exhibit.

“The men who worked with Quirino said she was very passionate about the performance and transmission of this cultural expression we know as mariachi. But she also had to set boundaries with men. She told them: ‘We’re here to work — and please be aware that I carry a gun!’ It was an effective strategy, according to the interviews with her daughter and the men who performed with her.”

Between the 1940s and 1950s, three prominent all-women Mariachi groups rose to the fore in Mexico City, Adela y Su Mariachi de Muchachas, Mariachi Femenil Estrellas de Mexico and Mariachi Las Coronelas.

All three groups toured extensively, some as far away as Brazil, and were featured in films and on records. Yet, while there is little today to document their contributions, Perez was able to pinpoint a key motivation for many female mariachi musicians then that continues to this day.

“The theme that cuts across all generations is that women have felt constrained in their daily lives, as far as expectations of who they should be,” she noted.

“This male (music) form has provided an avenue for them to relieve themselves of those constraints and to express themselves. It allowed them to be more assertive and independent in their everyday lives, and women have been important contributors to keeping this tradition alive.”